( more madness from the MNR , they have now decided a species of wolf living in Algonquin park is rare and to better protect it , you need to provide protection for all wolves even common coyotes which are known to go on farms and attack livestock and even eat people's pets )

The government has taken the most effective tools out of the farmers’ tool box

Community Feb 05, 2018 by Laurel J. Campbell  Almaguin News|

This is a file photo of an Eastern Wolf in its natural habitat in Algonquin Provincial Park. An Environmental Bill of Rights is now posted asking for comments on enlarging the area of protection for the Algonquin wolf from Killarney to Peterborough. Those concerned have until Feb. 15 to post their comments. Feb. 5, 2018. - Bob Hilscher/Thinkstock

ALMAGUIN — Time is running out for people concerned about expanded protection areas for the Algonquin wolf to input their opinion into the Environmental Bill of Rights Registry. Deadline for submissions in Feb. 14.

The proposal, called a recovery strategy for the Algonquin wolf, would see a ban on hunting wolves and coyotes over an area of the province from Kearney to Peterborough and south along the coast of Georgian Bay east to the other side of Algonquin Park.

“Algonquin wolves must receive the full protection of the law if this threatened species is to have a chance of recovery,” says the report of the environmental commissioner of Ontario who is recommending a prohibition on hunting and trapping of wolves and coyotes in all areas where the wolf could be roaming.

The proposal has not been well received by hunters, farmers, trappers and even pet owners in the effected areas.

“ “The endangered species act, in my opinion, has become weaponized by protectionist groups.” ”
“The government banned hunting in forty-one townships around Algonquin Park in 2016,” said Ray Gall, vice president of the central region of the Ontario Fur Managers. “Now they want to expand that to cover most of the province.”

Because the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) feels the various species of wolves and coyotes look too similar to be discerned by a hunter, the ban, intended to protect the Algonquin wolf, listed as a threatened species in 2016, was expanded to cover all canines.

The province estimates that the current Algonquin wolf population is fewer than 500 mature individuals.

“The endangered species act, in my opinion, has become weaponized by protectionist groups,” said Gall, who says the proposal will ban hunting or trapping of the wolves in a 40,000 square kilometre area.

He says one of the concerns for trappers is the wolves’ predilection for beaver meat.

Beaver trapping quotas have already dropped by 30 per cent, a result of the decline in the number of the animals being caught.

“Everyone thinks that wolves predominantly eat deer and moose, which they can catch easier in the winter snows, but during the summertime, they mostly eat smaller animals and they eat a lot of beaver,” Gall said.

“Without the beaver we end up with dry hay marshes, not fit to feed any wildlife, and the other things that are going to suffer as a result of a decline in beaver ponds and wetlands are the already endangered species like salamanders and turtles, as well as the moose and deer. That’s one of my big issues.”

The Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) “vehemently objects to the expansion of the no hunting trapping zones for wolves,” said OFA policy researcher Peter Jeffery.

Part of the OFA argument is that wolves, by MNR definition, thrive best in forested and undisturbed habitat, so agricultural fields and woodlots don’t qualify. But coyotes love those areas and are a big threat to livestock. The problem there is not the Algonquin wolf, Jeffery said.

“By labelling the Algonquin wolf endangered farmers lost the ability to take out that nuisance wolf or coyote that has developed a taste for lamb and beef,” said Jeffery. “You can only act in case of immediate threat. You have to catch it in the act of doing the deed, which by then is probably too late.”

Further impacting on farmers losing livestock to wolves are changes in the compensation program that makes farmers who have had five kill claims in a calendar year have to provide a plan for increasing the protection of their livestock to reduce predation losses.

“If I’m in one of these townships under the ban, I can’t hunt, I can’t trap, I may be able to buy guard dogs, but that’s expensive. The government has taken the most effective tools out of the farmers’ tool box,” Jeffery said.

Media reports of deer killed by wolves or coyotes near urban areas, like North Bay are increasing as are reports of missing pets and sightings of what are perceived to be wolves in populated areas, including reports of wolves seen at Powassan’s Hydro Pond beach.

“This is a very, very big deal,” said Gall. “It’s important that people respond to the EBR (Environmental Bill of Rights)”

( the environmentalists logic is purely crazy , what if someone claimed they had found a rare maple tree growing somewhere in Algonquin park ? and to protect it , we had to ban harvesting of all maple trees in a 200 km radius ? people would say it was crazy as we know the maple tree is common and grows everywhere .

the same logic has been applied to the wolves , there claiming the wolf which has always lived in the park is now some sort of rare breed . and even the common coyotes which plaque southern Ontario deserve protection as they could be mistaken for the wolves even though they are much smaller and look different . it makes no sense and defies logic )

Protecting a top predator dangerous

Saturday, February 10, 2018 2:06:09 EST AM

The following is in response to the article Wolf protection concerns trappers which appeared Friday.

To the editor:

I’m no biologist. However, I have 40 years of experience trapping and hunting in the shield country of Ontario.

For anyone to believe that there is a new animal roaming the woods is very disturbing.

What if a biologist from a special interest group claimed next month that there is now a new squirrel that has magically come to life deep in Algonquin Park and its name is the Algonquin red squirrel? Well, ladies and gentlemen, you would all die from laughter at such a claim, as we all know a red squirrel is red squirrel, right?

This nonsense has to stop before there isn’t enough deer or moose to hunt or beaver to trap, not to mention the livestock that will become its main target after the ungulates have been depleted beyond recovery.

This notion that the Algonquin wolf (formerly the eastern wolf) is a different animal than the one’s my father trapped back in the 1970s to the late 1990s is an absurd claim and for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry to try to protect the top predator is a very dangerous proposal to say the least.

I want to be very clear that I don’t agree with the expansion of boundaries to protect the wolf/coyote. As a matter of fact, my suggestion is take the current boundaries off as the over-population of this top predator is quickly spreading to the adjacent land as they eat themselves out of house and home.

There should be no limits or quotas, and a bounty should be placed on this original predator as its numbers have skyrocketed in the past three years because of the original plan to protect it. In short, even if you believe that the Algonquin wolf is, in fact, a new species I can guarantee that it doesn’t need protection.

In closing just remember a red squirrel is a red squirrel.

Mark Rich

Callander

What’s on your mind?

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A photo taken by a Callander-area trapper in January illustrates a fraction of the 52 "brush" wolves he claims were snared legally by him and four others this season.

The trapper says they've never seen so many packs in one area or caught so many so close to residences.

They fear a proposed expansion of a ban on trapping and hunting the recently designated Algonquin wolf to highways 17 and 11 will create a dangerous over-population and decimate local deer and game.

The trapper said seven of the wolves he snared were so diseased with mange they had to be destroyed instead of skinned for the fur.

Similar concerns were raised by Carmen Cotnoir in a Jan. 30 letter to The Nugget,

Cotnoir, northeast vice-president of the Ontario Fur Managers Federation, urged trappers, hunters and livestock producers to respond to the proposed expansion of the no-hunting and no-trapping zone before Feb. 14.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry has proposed expanding the protected area as part of the recovery strategy for the Algonquin wolf. The ban includes coyotes because the two animals can be easily mistaken for one another.

“With this decision of no hunting or trapping of coyotes/wolves, we will be faced with a surplus of apex predators,” Cotnoir warned. “This will be responsible for a major disturbance in our ecosystem balance.

“Up to now, the hunters and trappers controlled the population of canine. Without this control of population, diseases such as mange, which is already a major concern with coyotes, will produce an unhealthy animal.”

The Algonquin wolf was initially classified as a species of special concern, but was upgraded in 2016 to threatened — just below endangered.

A report last fall from the province’s environmental commissioner indicated these mid-size, threatened wolves extend “from Peterborough to North Bay, and from Pembroke to Sault Ste. Marie.”

But between their small population — there could be as few as 154 adult Algonquin wolves in all of Ontario — and lax rules around their harvest, it’s conceivable they could entirely disappear from the landscape, states the report Good Choices, Bad Choices.

“The best estimates we’ve seen is there are perhaps 250 mature wolves alive in the entire world, and two-thirds of those are in Ontario,” said environmental commissioner Dianne Saxe.

Yet just a few months after the Algonquin wolf gained more protections under the Endangered Species Act — as well as a new official name; it was previously called the eastern wolf — the province effectively exempted the animal from ESA safeguards, Saxe argued.

“They have provided some protection, in and very close to a few parks,” she said. “But how is the wolf supposed to know that?”

In Northern Ontario, hunters can bag two wolves per year, while trappers are allowed to catch as many wolves as they want.

Coyotes have become a concern in several area communities. But if Algonquin and timber wolves are also inadvertently killed as part of an effort to reduce coyote pressure, this will only exacerbate the problem, the commissioner warns.

“Coyotes have moved in because the wolves have been killed,” said Saxe. “They take advantage of the vacant niche, so killing wolves just means you have more coyotes, and it's not better for the livestock.”

Levels of livestock predation are relatively low in the area where Algonquin wolves are found, according to her report, and farmers can be compensated for any losses they do experience through a provincial program.

With files from Jim Moodie / Postmedia

To read the chapter on Algonquin wolves in the environmental commissioner’s report, visit tinyurl.com/y7cobtsx.

Comments on the proposed protection area expansion can be sent to MNRF EBR 013-1813 site, by fax 705 755 2901 or by mail: Species at Risk Recovery Section, Species Conservation Policy Branch, MNRF, 300 Water St., 5N, Peterborough, Ont. K9J 8M5

I read the detailed proposed on the MNR website and its clearly been written by people who are very pro wolf .

but in there own data , they admit the "Algonquin wolf " mostly only lives in Algonquin park and killarney areas not the new areas being added as off limits to wolf trapping and hunting . only common coyotes have been found in these areas

the logic doesn't add up and doesn't make a lot of sense , they also haven't even done studies to determine what the wolf eats during the summer months or how such a proposal would effect the wildlife or landowners in the affected areas .

so there essentially protecting a common species that numbers in the 1000's and is known to attack livestock and pets on the basis the other wolves might pass thru these other areas even though there is no evidence of them living in them

Eastern wolves are elusive creatures that roam the forests of Quebec and Ontario. In 2016 the Government of Ontario changed the status of these wolves - known as Algonquin wolves in that province - from 'special concern' to 'threatened'. The Ontario government only has until June of this year to come up with a recovery plan for the animal. Wolf researcher and activist Hannah Barron works for the Eastern Wolf Survey. She is currently busy gathering data about this population to help forge a plan for their protection. Documentary producer Andrew Budziak went out with Barron and her team of citizen scientists to collect wolf feces, known as 'scat.'

The problem

One of the big problems is that these wolves are still being legally hunted and trapped for a couple of reasons. There is a commercial industry as well as the fact that these wolves are a threat to livestock. But some hunters and trappers believe this population are not true wolves and do not have a distinct lineage, that they are big mixed-breed coyotes that have been around for a long time and do not deserve special status. They base this information on a recent Princeton University study that even found dog DNA among the population. The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources thinks differently.

The solution

Hannah Barron
Hannah Barron works with Earthroots to monitor the populations of wolves in Ontario. (Andrew Budziak)

There is a lot of tension right now between conservationists and hunters and trappers, so a solution may be difficult to achieve. The Ontario government must find a balance between the science gathered by continuous monitoring of the population, and the needs of hunters, trappers and farmers whose livelihoods are also threatened.

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